The present invention concerns track-alternating equipment for magnetic-levitation roadways.
One known approach to allowing a change from one magnetic levitation roadway to another adjacent involves special bearers clamped into position at one end at a point of contiguity between two roadways. Each bearer can be inflected toward the other roadway and the bearer accommodated therein. The free ends of the bearers are in alignment, and their midsections follow a prescribed inflection. Several horizontally acting bearer inflecting mechanisms and inflection-maintaining fasteners are accordingly distributed along each bearer between the midsection and the end and can be operated individually or together.
Establishing the bearers"" inflection, their xe2x80x9ccurvaturexe2x80x9d, by means of tabs that act against stops is also known.
German 4 416 819 A1 describes a junction with a bearer that can be inflected resiliently from one roadway toward the other. The inflected ends are in alignment and constitute the junction. The bearer adjoining the resilient end of the other bearer can be resiliently inflected out and away from the adjacent roadway.
This procedure establishes a transition between the roadways even when they are less than twice the open base of the car. This advantage, however, is attained at high engineering expenditure and without decreasing the distance between the roadways all that much.
The object of the present invention is track-alternating equipment of the aforesaid genus that can be employed to change from one magnetic-levitation roadway to another narrowly adjacent by means of relatively simple engineering.
This object is attained in accordance with the present invention in that the butting bearers are shifted out beyond the open base of the car without being deformed.
One advantage of the present invention is that, since the butting bearers are not subjected to deformation stress when shifted, they will be extensively relieved of material fatigue.
In one practical embodiment of the present invention, the butting bearers are shifted out beyond the open base of the car without being subjected to inflection stress.
In another .practical embodiment of the invention, the butting bearers are shifted out beyond the open base of the car by rotating or pivoting, preferably around a vertical axis.
The end of each butting bearer more remote from the inflectable bearer can be mounted on a rotating bearing with a vertical axis of rotation. The butting bearer can preferably be pivoted on the rotating bearing by one or more horizontally active tabs at a distance from the bearing.